Theologian's Almanac for Week of March 3, 2024
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking — specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, March 3:
March 6 is the birthday of novelist Gabriel García Márquez, born in Aracataca, Colombia, in 1927. His most celebrated book, published in 1967, is also one of the most important in all of Latin American literature: One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was from his grandmother, he said, that he learned the style and tone he used in the novel: she would tell stories “that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness ... what was most important was the expression she had on her face. She did not change her expression at all when telling her stories and everyone was surprised.” And so when it came to the fantastic stories scattered throughout One Hundred Years of Solitude, “I discovered that what I had to do was believe in them myself and write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face.” The novel begins with the line: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice...”
Márquez permitted most of his novels to be made into films — with the conspicuous exception of One Hundred Years of Solitude. He once offered the rights to a famous American film producer on one condition: that they “film the entire book, but only release one chapter — two minutes long — each year, for 100 years.”
March 6 is also the birthday of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, born in Durham, England, in 1806. She eloped with the poet Robert Browning and moved to Italy, and while she’s best known today for her love poetry (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” is one of her most famous lines), her work in Italy focused largely on social justice. Her family had owned Jamaican sugar plantations dependent on enslaved labor, and she was a committed abolitionist. She also wrote about the horrors of child labor, the Austrian occupation of Italy, and other related subjects. Here’s a taste of her theology, from Aurora Leigh:
Earth’s Crammed with Heaven
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries…
March 6 is also the birthday of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Italian sculptor, architect, and painter, born in Tuscany, Italy, in 1475. He began his career as a kind of con man, forging a sculpture in the ancient Greek style in an effort to pass it off as an expensive antique. The prospective buyer learned the truth and demanded a refund — but was so impressed with Michelangelo’s skill that he invited him to Rome. The artist ended up staying, and by the end of his career, he had been commissioned by nine consecutive popes — including Pope Julius II, who commissioned the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Michelangelo once said: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” And again: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
March 7 is the anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, the day known as “Bloody Sunday.” Six hundred marchers — including the late, great John Lewis — departed from Selma, bound for the state capitol to call for African-American voting rights. They got all of six blocks before state and local law enforcement blocked them, ordered them to disperse, and then attacked them with tear gas and billy clubs. ABC News interrupted their regular programming to show footage of the violence, and the dramatic images helped shift public opinion. Demonstrations appeared across the country, and two weeks later, another march from Selma made it all the way to Montgomery, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By the time they reached the capitol, their numbers had swelled to over 25,000.
March 8 is International Women’s Day, an rallying point for women’s rights and gender equality since 1909, when the Socialist Party of America organized a march in New York City. Labor movements all over the world took notice, and the day became an international phenomenon. This year’s theme is “Inspire Inclusion.”
March 8 is also the day in 1855 that a train first crossed the very first railway suspension bridge, an event that took place in Niagara Falls, New York — which raises the question: How exactly do you build a suspension bridge across a 800-foot gorge, 250 feet above the rushing water below?
The answer begins with a kite. An engineer named Charles Ellet Jr. announced a prize of $5 for any child who managed to fly a kite across the gorge from the Canadian side to the American side, such that the kite string could be tied down on both sides. After a few days and many attempts, one enterprising boy managed the feat — and Ellet’s team then tied a slightly heavier string to one end of the kite string and, by means of the kite string, pulled the heavier string across the gap. They then repeated the process with still heavier lines, then ropes, then light metal cables, then heavy metal cables — until there were lines across the gap strong enough to support a railway suspension bridge, and eventually to support an entire train. All of which goes to show: the power of a kite!